Adness Entertainment has licensed the 2002 50-episode live action tokusatsu (special effects) series Kamen Rider Ryuki to 4Kids Entertainment.  4Kids will air the series, which will be renamed Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, during the 2008-2009 TV season on the former Kids WB block on the CW network (see “4Kids Takes Over the Kids’ WB”). 

The long-running Kamen Rider franchise was created in the early 1970s by manga-ka Shotaro Ishinomori, who also created the first Japanese superhero team Cyborg 009 in 1963.  Ishinomori created the Kamen Rider’s distinctive costume, which was inspired by the grasshopper.  Through repeated television incarnations the Kamen Rider franchise continued to sell lots of toys and has been immortalized with a statue outside of toymaker Bandai’s Tokyo headquarters.

The 12th Kamen Rider tokusatsu series, Kamen Rider Ryuki was a co-production of Ishimori Productions and Toei.  The series aired in Japan in 2002 and 2003.  The hero of this Kamen Rider saga, known as Kit Taylor in the American version, finds one of 13 Advent Cards that allows him to gain strength from a monster from the Mirror World and become a Kamen Rider.  But the creator of the Advent Cards has one rule—there can only be one Kamen Rider—and this rule sets off conflicts between the 13 individuals who have found the cards and unlocked their powers.